The issuance of the national card will be the next important stage of the NSPC development

ST. PETERSBURG, June 5. /TASS/. International payment operators Visa and MasterCard have fully transferred their transactions inside Russian to processing in the National System of Payment Cards (NSPC), two top managers of Russia's Central Bank said on the sidelines of the International Banking Congress on Friday.

The NSPC currently processes 10-12 million transactions a day and operates without any disruptions, the managers said.

All international payment systems were required to transfer card transactions inside Russia to the NSPC processing before March 31, 2015. The term for local operators was set until December this year.

Only MasterCard succeeded in transferring intra-Russian card transactions to the NSPC processing on time. Visa completed its transition on May 27. The Russian regulator did not rule out that Visa would be able to fully return its security deposit placed with the Central Bank in April and avoid any financial losses, despite the untimely transition to the NSPC processing.

Visa to face no penalties for untimely transition to Russia’s NSPC processing

Russian Central Bank First Deputy Governor Georgy Luntovsky earlier confirmed that the international payment system Visa had fully transferred its intra-Russian transactions to processing in the National System of Payment Cards.

The Central Bank official commented on media reports that Visa had transferred only a part of its operations to the NSPC as of early June.

"I trust the information I receive from the NSPC. After the media reports yesterday, I requested data and received confirmation that Visa had fully switched to local processing," Luntovsky said.

"In turn, Central Bank Deputy Governor in charge of NSPC development Olga Skorobogatova said the system was processing 10-12 million Visa and MasterCard transactions daily.

Also, according to the regulator, Visa has already applied to the Central Bank of Russia with a request to consider the legitimate possibility of returning the security deposit placed before April 30 for the untimely transition to the NSPC processing.

The Central Bank did not rule out that Visa might avoid any losses at all. "With the transfer of all the banks to the NSPC processing, it is possible to talk about the full return of the security deposit," Skorobogatova said, without specifying the deposit’s size.

Russian Central Bank Chief Elvira Nabiullina assured Russians in early April that no problems would arise during the transition to the national payment system. However, a major technical glitch occurred in the NSPC already on April 29 when Visa and MasterCard transactions were not serviced for several hours.

However, according to Central Bank Deputy Governor Skorobogatova, the NSPC held its own probe to reveal that the problems were due to failures in telecommunications lines that were outside the periphery of the system’s platform. The Central Bank official said the regulator had carried out the relevant work with telecoms operators.

NSPC Head Vladimir Komlev earlier said the failure was not systemic and the company did not expect it to occur again.

NSPC development

The issuance of the national card will be the next important stage of the NSPC development. The card's final design will be outlined in a month or two, Central Bank Deputy Governor Skorobogatova said. The national card’s pilot issuance will begin already in December this year and at least 20 Russian banks have expressed their readiness to issue it.

"Over 20 banks have expressed their desire to participate in the pilot project for the national card issuance," Skorobogatova said on Friday.

The national card logotype and name were selected in late May in a nation-wide contest with the help of popular vote. The card name Mir won the contest and now professional designers will work on the card’s design.

The Central Bank deputy governor also said it was most likely that the card’s name would not be translated on the international market and would be prescribed in Latin as Mir.